Fav Actors of the 1950’s ~ #9 ~ Yul Brynner

“So let it be written. So let it be done.”

With those words, Yul Brynner became a legend. As a child I had never saw the King and I, but I had seen the Ten Commandments every year and I became enthralled with the story of Moses and Ramses. Yul Brynner was Ramses II to me. He was also one of the first male stars that I became attracted to. Even though his character was evil and scheming, I thought he was what a real man should look like. While everyone else was making over Charlton Heston as Moses, my favorite was Yul Brynner.

He made an immediate impact upon launching his film career in 1956, after acting on stage and modeling in his early 20’s, even once posing nude for the famous photographer George Platt Lynes.

He appeared not only in the Ten Commandments that year but also the film version of the King and I after playing the role on Broadway. He walked away with the Oscar that year for Best Actor. Brynner, only 5’10”, was reportedly concerned about being overshadowed by Charlton Heston’s physical presence in the film The Ten Commandments, and prepared with an intensive weight-lifting program. But more than any other role he would later play he would be best remembered for the King of Siam.

Brynner died on October 10, 1985 at the age of 70 in New York City. The cause of death was lung cancer brought on by smoking. Throughout his life, Brynner was always seen with a cigarette in his hand. In January 1985, nine months before his death, he gave an interview on Good Morning America, expressing his desire to make an anti-smoking commercial. A clip from that interview was made into just such a public service announcement by the American Cancer Society, and released after his death; it includes the warning “Now that I’m gone, I tell you, don’t smoke.”

 

Favorite Actresses of the 1950’s ~ #9 ~ Thelma Ritter

Thelma Ritter first role in the classic 1947 film, Miracle on 34th Street was not even credited, although her work as a frustrated mother unable to find the toy that Kris Kringle promised her son. She was 45 at the time and although she had made a mark in theater she was on the verge of becoming a star.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz put her in his next film, A Letter to Three Wives. Again her part was not even credited, but Mankiewicz liked what Ritter could do and he cast her as the outspoken, brash maid to Bette Davis’ Margo Channing in All About Eve. She became a household name and also received her first of six Academy Award nominations for Supporting actress. Ritter never won an award, but she would become known as one of the greatest and best known supporting, charecter actresses ever put on film. She even co-hosted the awards show with Bob Hope in 1954.

I became a fan of Thelma the first time I ever saw All About Eve, and continued to seek her films. Each film she palyed with the same commitment and vigor of the first. Her honesty and truth came through with each role. In occasional non-comedic turns, she projected an unglamorous world-weariness, notably in Pickup on South Street (1953).
Some of her best-known roles included Bette Davis’s devoted maid in All About Eve (1950) as Gene Tierney’s maid – mother in law in The Mating Season (1951), James Stewart’s nurse in Rear Window (1954), and as Doris Day’s housekeeper in Pillow Talk (1959). Her turn in John Huston’s The Misfits (1961), where she played opposite Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable, also garnered favorable reviews

Shortly after a 1968 performance on The Jerry Lewis Show, Ritter suffered a heart attack which eventually proved fatal. She was 9 days shy of her 67th birthday.

 

Fav Films of the 50’s – #9 – On the Waterfront

The idea for On the Waterfront began with an expose series written for The New York Sun by reporter Malcolm Johnson. The 24 articles won Johnson a Pulitzer Prize and, reinforced by the April 1948, murder of a New York dock hiring boss.

Elia Kazan directed and won an Oscar for Kazan in directing as well as Best Picture. The movie is dark and moving, as most of Kazan’s films. It also starred Marlon Brando, the newest name to be called a star, and the beautiful Eva Marie Saint. Rod Steiger who had made a name for himself played Marlon’s brother.

A powerful and thought provoking film, it gave us the famous lines…”I coulda been a contenda”

 

Fav Actors of the 1950’s – Charlton Heston – #10

Want to film a religious epic? In the 1950’s the man to get was Charlton Heston. He was Ben-Hur, and thanks to the airing every year of the Ten Commandments, he became Moses. As I kid I really thought he was Moses.

In 1950, Heston made his first film, Dark City. But his breakthrough came in 1952 with his role of a circus manager in The Greatest Show on Earth. But Heston became an icon by portraying Moses in The Ten Commandments, a part he was chosen for reportedly because director Cecil B. DeMille thought that he bore an uncanny resemblance to the statue of Moses by Michelangelo.

He continued to play leading roles in a number of fictional and historical epics through the 50’s and early 60’s—such as Ben-Hur, El Cid, and 55 Days at Peking. In the late 60’s into the 70’s he became a Sci-Fi movie star. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his 1959 performance in the title role of Ben-Hur, one of 11 earned by that film.

 

Favorite Actresses of the 50’s ~ Marilyn Monroe ~ #10

She was beautiful, voluptuous, sexy, and one of the hottest actresses in the 1950’s. With her appearing in 23 films in the 1950’s, Marilyn soon became one of the, if not the most celebrated actresses of all time. It wasn’t due to her outstanding acting ability, which in all honesty wasn’t that bad at all, but due to her personality and sex symbol image.

She made apperances in All About Eve in 1950, As Young as You Feel in 1951, Don’t Bother to Knock and Monkey Business in 1952; Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and How to Marry a Millionaire in 1953; Then came the big roles that catapulted her even further upward as well as into a downward spiral, The Seven Year Itch, Some Like it Hot and Bus Stop.

Unfortunately she became an even bigger star and legend due to her untimely death after filming what some say was her greatest role of her career, matched with the greatest leading man of all time, Clark Gable in The Misfits.

 

Fav Films of the 50’s ~ #10 ~ Lady & the Tramp

The fifteenth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon, it was the first animated feature filmed in the Cinemascope widescreen film process. The story pairs a female Cocker Spaniel named Lady who lives with a rich family and a male mutt named Tramp who lives on the streets. Once the two of them meet, they share an adventure together and eventually fall in love.

To this day, Lady and the Tramp is still one of my favorite Disney films. The story, and the cast of animal charecters , my favorite featuring the voice of the great Peggy Lee (who was an Oscar nominated Best Supporting Actress in 1956) as Peg, a broken-down old showgirl of a dog, whose provocative walk was based on the stage-prowl of Peggy Lee. Later she sued Disney and won a landmark legal judgment for a portion of the profits from the videocassette sale of the film.

 

Best of the Rest

From 1950 to 1959 there were TONS of great movies released. I love the movies from the 50’s and to try and break down a list of my top 10 favorites was very difficult, but I have the list and ready to go. But, before I give you my favorite films, and actors and actresses of the decade I want to share some of my other favorites. My best of the rest.

30. Sunset Boulevard (1950): Gloria Swanson, a star of silent films became a legend of Sound films with her protrayl of Norma Desmond. Her lines; “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small”, and “I’m ready for my close-up” are two of the most famous lines ever uttered on film.

29. African Queen (1951): This is the complicated tale of two opposites who develop an implausible love affair as they travel together downriver in Africa around the start of World War I. It also paired two unlikely stars, Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn. It was also the first color film for the two leads and for director Huston.

28. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) “Stella!” Immortal words from an immortal star Marlon Brando in one of the finest adaptations of Tennesse Williams.

27. Singing in the Rain (1952) Gene Kelly never looked, acted or danced better.

26. From Here to Eternity (1953) Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr, on the beach, with the water coming up over their bodies. One of the most erotic scenes in movie history. Not to mention a great classic film.

25. Shane (1953) Alan Ladd in the most successful Western of the 1950s.

24. Rear Window (1954) Hitchcock at his macabre best with one of the most intriguing visual studies of obsessive human curiosity and voyeurism.

23. Seven Year Itch (1955) Marilyn Monroe, Billy Wilder, a street grate and a fan. The rest is history.

22. East of Eden (1955) The re-telling of the biblical Cain and Abel story. This is the only film with James Dean that was released prior to his untimely death.

21. Jailhouse Rock (1957) One of what would become a slew of Elvis Presley films, however he actually acted in. A true 1950’s rock and roll movie.

20. The Bridge Over the River Kwai (1957) The film was the number one box-office success of the year (the highest grossing film) and it won critical acclaim as well – eight Academy Award nominations and seven Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor (Alec Guinness), Best Director, Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium (Pierre Boulle), Best Cinematography, Best Score, and Best Film Editing. One of the greatest WWII movies ever made.

19. 12 Angry Men (1957) a diverse group of twelve male jurors who are uncomfortably brought together to deliberate after hearing the ‘facts’ in a seemingly open-and-shut murder trial case. The Jurors; Martin Balsam, John Fiedler, Lee J. Cobb, E. G. Marshall, Jack Klugman, Edward Binns, Jack Warden, Henry Fonda, Joseph Sweeney, Ed Begley, George Voskovec, & Robert Webber.

18. Vertigo (1958) At the time of the film’s release, it was not a box-office hit, but has since been regarded as one of the greatest films ever made. The work is a mesmerizing romantic suspense/thriller with James Stewart and Kim Novack.

17. The Blob (1958) Steve McQueen’s film debut, and the film that epitomises the rest of the many B-Movies made in the 1950’s.

16. Ben-Hur (1959) The fifties was the decade for Charleton Heston and epic movies. 1950’s version of Russell Crowe only better. And to think he almost didn’t get this role as it was turned down first by Burt Lancaster, Rock Hudson and Paul Newman. The film went on to win 11 of the 12 Academy Award nominations it received.

15. Diary of Anne Frank (1959) Shelly Winters as her best. A now classic film that is shown in Jr. and Sr. High Schools across the nation.

14. North by Northwest (1959) By far one of the most entertaining movies ever made by the legendary director Alfred Hitchcock.

13. Sleeping Beauty (1959) Walt Disney classic that endures still today.

12. Some Like it Hot (1959) Dubbed as one of the best comedies to ever grace the screen. Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis brought together by Billy Wilder.

11. Suddenly Last Summer (1959) Katherine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in a dark, unsettling story that leaves you wanting more.

Those are not even the tip of the iceberg of the great movies that the innocent decade of the 1950’s gave us. Some day I will have to sit down and work on a top 100 films of the 1950’s but for now these are 20 of my favorites. Next up are my top 10 favorite films of the 1950’s

 

The Fifties

I guess you could say I was a product of the 50’s. My parents married in July of 1959 and I was conceived three months later. Even though I was not born until 1960, the influence of the decade of the 50’s would be forever be a part of me. I remember sitting for hours looking over my mother’s scrapbooks she had kept as a teenager. It was full of pictures of James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Natalie Wood, Robert Wagner and many many more of the stars of Hollywood that made names for themselves during the fifties.

Over the next few weeks I am going to share with you some of my favorite movies and movie roles of that decade long ago before Vietnam and the end of Camelot.

 

Worst of 2006 ~ Wicker Man ~ #1

I can’t shake the image of Nicolas Cage running through the forest in a bear costume from my mind. He has never been one of my favorite actors. He is the same in every movie I have ever seen him in, BAD. This movie was a joke. A remake of a great horror movie, this adaptation is more like a comedy. Poorly acted, directed, filmed just poor. Wicker Man is a neutered remake of the 1973 thriller, this 2006 film was without a doubt the worst film of 2006 (and quite possibly the entire decade). F

 

1 ~ Clark Gable ~ Gone With the Wind

Clark Gable was dubbed the “King of Hollywood” in the 1930’s, a title that would remain until his death in 1960. For over 40 years his face and masculinity hit the big screen and he became one of the first “Superstars” before that name was ever coined. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Gable among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, ranking at No. 7.

His role as Rhett Butler, the man who tried to tame Scarlett O’Hara is now legendary. One of the greatest film roles to ever be made, and no one else but Gable could have pulled it off. Decades later, Gable would say that whenever his career would start to fade, a re-release of Gone with the Wind would instantly revive everything, and he continued as a top leading man for the rest of his life.

Some say that his last film role in the Misfits with Marilyn Monroe was his finest, but His role as Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind is by far the most memorable.